Beauty

Get a refreshing spring beauty makeover

Beauty

Get a refreshing spring beauty makeover

Summer's in full effect, which means the heat (and the smog and the humidity) is on. Before the season completely wreaks havoc on your beautiful self, go DIY with an at-home midsummer makeover. Invite your closest friends to join in on the fun. Then turn off your phones and spend a girlie evening pampering yourselves from head to toe.

Revive hair that's been damaged by sun, salt, and chlorine.• Wash your hair with a hydrating shampoo such as Marc Anthony Ultimate Moisture Replenishing Shampoo. It's got shea butter to repair split ends and protect against environmental damage while soy proteins penetrate the hair shaft and bring life back to dry locks: www.marcanthony.com.

• Replenish your hair with a 5-minute conditioning treatment containing avocado oil, which repairs damage and provides intense moisture and shine. Try Redken All Soft Silk Fuel: www.redken.ca.• Coat your hair in a thick masque such as John Frieda Critical Care Frizz-Ease Reinforce Strengthening Triple Creme Masque. Cover your mane with a shower cap for 20 minutes or leave it on overnight: www.johnfrieda.com.• Don't forget to protect your hair from further damage the next time you head outside. Cover up with a hat or spritz your locks with Schwarzkopf Professional BC Bonacure Sun Protection Spray: www.schwarzkopf-professional.com.

Contests

Our 60-Day Holiday Countdown Giveaway is on!

From November 2 to December 31, 2016, we're giving away weekly prizes (for a total value of over $15,000) as part of our 60-Day Holiday Countdown.

For easy access to our weekly prizes, sign up for our 60-Day Holiday Countdown newsletters and you'll receive a daily email featuring a link to enter that week's contest, along with Tested Till Perfect holiday recipes, awesome gift guides, DIY decor ideas and more. You can enter to win each prize once daily until each contest closes.

You can enter to win this week's prize below, and see past contests and winners.

Quick & Easy

Easy pasta salad recipes

Planning a picnic or family barbecue anytime soon? Give yourself one less thing to worry about and go for one of our easy pasta salad recipes. It's sure to be a hit!

Pasta salads are great to make ahead, and are absolute tops for large groups. They also take the cake for being an extremely versatile dish – with a host of added ingredients, toppings and dressings, simple pasta salads can go from humble side to star entrée in no time.

We asked Test Kitchen food specialist Amanda Barnier to share some top tips for preparing pasta salads, and why they're a crowd favourite. Here's what she had to share:

Pasta salads: the perfect make-ahead dish
"Pasta salads can easily be prepped in advance and can feed a crowd with little effort," Amanda says. "It can be made in advance and cooled immediately after cooking."

One important tip to remember, she adds, is to "add dressing the day it's being served, because it will quickly absorb the dressing."

Pasta salad favourites
"I like using cheese filled tortellini for a hearty salad. Soba and rice noodles are great with Asian dressings, whole grain and coloured pastas," Amanda says.

How to store pasta salads
"Keep salads well wrapped and refrigerated," she says. "Salad has the same storage life as its ingredients. Seafood is best eaten within 2 days, and chicken (within) 2 to 3 days. If traveling, be sure to store pasta salads in coolers packed with lots of ice."

"Proteins should not be within 4 C and 60 C for longer than a four hour period," she adds.

The long and short of it: best pasta shapes
"Short shapes are best with vinaigrettes and creamy dressings, and chunky ingredients such as chopped vegetables and beans," Amanda says.

Tips for making pasta salad
"If making a pasta salad in advance, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and drain well," she advises. "Add dressing just prior to serving. Pasta quickly absorbs liquids; if the dressing is added too soon, the pasta will absorb it."

So whether you prefer chunky pasta salads with a cool, creamy dressing perfect for summer picnics, or entrée-worthy pasta salads with long rice noodles and a tangy vinaigrette, you're sure to find a new favourite with from our collection.

Mediterranean Orzo Salad
This salad highlights many fresh flavours of the Mediterranean and is at its best when made with good-quality olive oil.

Photography by Jeff Coulson

The Best Macaroni Salad
This is a great keeper salad and perfect for a picnic or BBQ. Just make sure you pack it with plenty of ice packs to keep it nice and cold, both during transportation and at the table.

Photography by Annabelle Waugh

Chicken, Broccoli and Bocconcini Pasta Salad
Make this pasta salad for the whole family—the kids will love the mild dressing and round bocconcini cheese, while the adults will appreciate it as a light alternative to a sandwich.

Warm Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Salad
The dressing lends a taste of summer any time of year. The red peppers provide vitamins A and C and potassium. Quick and easy to make, this salad is perfect to take to a last-minute potluck or picnic.

Nutrition

Food allergies have an immune basis, so you experience symptoms every time you consume a food. Typical symptoms include skin rash, swelling and hives; severe reactions can be life-threatening. (Gas and bloating without any other symptoms don't necessarily constitute an allergic reaction.) Unlike intolerances, a delayed response is rare—allergic reactions usually present within minutes to a few hours after eating the food.

Diseases like celiac are different. For those with the autoimmune disease, the immune system attacks one's own body when gluten is consumed, damaging the villi that line the intestines, which can lead to serious nutritional deficiencies. If a screening blood test for celiac comes back positive, the diagnosis is usually confirmed with a biopsy of the small intestine. The Canadian Digestive Health Foundation suspects more than 330,000 Canadians have celiac disease, but only a third of cases are diagnosed. It's a lifelong disorder, and those with celiac are at an increased risk of other diseases, such as thyroid problems, Type 1 diabetes and small intestinal cancer.

Food sensitivities, meanwhile, can mean different things. Some experts consider sensitivity to be synonymous with intolerance, but there is no consensus in the scientific community. "Sensitivity is a rather loose term," says Dr. Mohsin Rashid, pediatric gastroenterologist and professor of pediatrics and medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax as well as professional advisory board member of the Canadian Celiac Association. "It means you get symptoms when you consume a food, but it's probably not an intolerance—you're not missing something in the body to digest it—and it's not a typical allergy, either." Symptoms vary from person to person, as does the amount of the food required to provoke the reaction.

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity—when people get gluten-triggered symptoms but don't have celiac disease or the accompanying damage to the intestines—is an example of a food sensitivity. With no test for this sensitivity, the diagnosis is made by ruling out celiac disease. "It is hard to study how many people have non-celiac gluten sensitivity," says Dr. Rashid, "because patients may not be going to their physicians—they are trying a gluten-free diet on their own first." Self-diagnosing is potentially dangerous, as some people who think they have a gluten sensitivity could actually have celiac disease or a wheat allergy, which, if left untreated, could have serious long-term health consequences.

Beauty

Secret Santa gifts (you'll want to keep!) at every price

It should be easy, but sometimes finding a gift within a certain price range that is still thoughtful can be difficult. Let us help.

Finding the perfect Secret Santa gift is more difficult than it seems. First, if you're buying for someone specific, you want to gift to be thoughtful—but that can be difficult if you only have a limited budget. And that's the thing about the budget—you need the gift to be less than, but close to, your budget (whether it's self-imposed or part of a larger secret santa mandate). Plus, sometimes you don't know who your secret Santa is! And shopping for a mystery person means you need to get something that will appeal to pretty much everyone.

Secret Santa gifts (you'll want to keep!) at every price

Under $10

This item combines two of our favourite things—the Toronto Blue Jays and lapel pins! Not a sports fan? Luckily there are plenty of lapel pin options to make sure you find the right one for your giftee.